Author Interview with Travel Memoirist and Fiction Writer John Manuel

I was lucky enough to visit the Dodacanese chain of Greek Islands last year. I don’t know why I took so long to start discovering Greece, but it’s ignited a passion for a country that is going to take years to explore in depth.

Today’s guest author, John Manuel, has been nurturing his own love affair with Greece, and uses his passion for the people and culture to write a series of nonfiction and fiction books. Whether you’re a fellow Grecophile, or just interested in writing and publishing your own travel inspired book, this interview with inspire you to put pen to paper and get your book written and published. ~~ Jay

Author Interview: John Manuel

How would you describe the type of books/genre you write?

Well, they fall into two categories really. I’ve written five travel memoir books, in which I’ve tried relentlessly to be witty! These loosely trace the history of my whole Greek experience, from meeting the half-Greek girl who I eventually married, through to, in the fifth one, a review of our first 10 years of living in Greece.

The fiction books all have a strong Greek connection, with much of the action taking place in Greece. I never thought I could write fiction at one time. Oddly, one of the reviewers who didn’t like one of my memoir books, said nevertheless that they liked my writing style and would love to see me write fiction. I suppose that was the catalyst that got me started with the genre.

What motivated you to start writing?

In a word, well two really, Bill Bryson. I so enjoy his books, especially “Down Under”, which had me falling off my sun bed while on holiday once, while reading his take on a radio commentary on a cricket test match that he tuned into by accident while driving across the Nullarbor plain in Australia. I’d read a couple of his and rather immodestly thought, “I could do this!”

When I thought about my whole ‘baptism’ into my wife’s Greek family, I was fairly sure that I had the material, so I got started on the first book, which had the working title of “Lela’s Daughter,” but eventually became “Feta Compli!” It was my first published work.

John Manuel books set in Greece — Book one from the Ramblings from Rhône’s series

Tell us the journey you went on to get your books published (e.g. direct on your website, self-published, assisted-publishing, traditional publisher)

I first had the idea to submit to an agent or publisher, but it was while writing “Feta” (circa 2001-4) that I read a Sunday Times article about lulu.com, which back then was a new venture. It was in the era when digital publishing was just beginning to get its skates on.

I did invest rather a lot of money on the current edition of the Writer’s Handbook, and did send some submissions, but without success at the time. This didn’t deter me, because I already knew of some very successful writers who’d spent years being rejected before eventually getting a deal, which was why I decided to investigate lulu.com.

I didn’t want to go the way of so-called ‘vanity’ publishing, which (while no offence is intended to anyone else) I had dabbled with, answering ads in the weekend papers promising new authors guaranteed success and the probability of becoming a household name and all that stuff. The thing about them is, they will read your manuscript and then send you a glowing review, because they’re then going to hit you with the request for three grand as your contribution toward the project. It appeals to one’s ego, but doesn’t help if you haven’t got that sort of money to lose anyway, which I didn’t.

Publishing with lulu.com gets easier with each project, but if you don’t know how to make you book look professional from the get-go, it’s not necessarily going to work for you. Fortunately for me, having been a graphic designer for several decades, I was able to make my books look the part. Once Kindle took off too, so did my audience really.

What publishing elements do you most enjoy and most like to avoid, and why? (e.g. design, marketing, formatting etc.)

I suppose what I dislike the most is that I’m quite impatient, once I’ve completed a book, to get it out there in the public domain. So the editing process gets me stressed!

Designing the covers I do myself, and that’s quite fun, except when I find it difficult to source a photo for the front cover. I still can’t really justify the outlay to get an illustrator to design one for me. I can do illustration at a push, but the time it would take me discourages me, and so I go down the ‘photo’ route.

Formatting I’ve now got fairly well sorted, and I use one app to do all the internal pages. it’s called iStudio Publisher and I like the way it works when building the inside pages according to a default page design that I set up myself. I don’t use the app for anything else, just the internal pages for each book.

Of course, for Kindle I upload a Word document, and it’s a little finicky getting all the parameters right so that the Kindle conversion engine won’t reject it. All in all I’m quite satisfied with my end product, with the exception that I still have difficulty getting exposure for each new work. My audience, over the years, has steadily grown, but it’s still largely recommendation and word of mouth.

With the hindsight of being a published author, anything you would have done differently?

Not really. Although I still live in hope that some agent or publisher will pick up one of my books in a 2nd hand store, see its potential, and get in touch! I read an excellent conventionally-published thriller a few years ago, and the author explained in the preface that this was how he eventually got a deal. I do, though, have reservations, because I feel quite strongly about the tone and content of my books and would resent being pressured to add more bad language, sex or violence. To me, if the story’s good enough, it’ll be well received, and I always cite Thomas Hardy and George Eliot as proof of that.

What tips or advice would you give an aspiring indie author who is looking to self-publish?

Stick with it, but don’t make the mistake of publishing with a poorly designed cover or inside page format. If the book looks amateur, then even if it’s a stonking good read, it’ll fail. The fact is, people do judge a book by its cover. First impressions count.

What marketing or promotional tools or techniques do you use to reach your readers?

I go in search of any opportunity, like this one, to get my work noticed. Years ago I committed “Facebook suicide” and left the social media site. I hated it, to be honest, because it’s so seldom used for the purpose for which it was originally designed. I’d had it up to here with fluffy little puppies and kitten videos. But a friend told me that it was the best platform out there for indie authors to get an audience, if you know how to make it work for you.

Nowadays, I have to admit, without Facebook I’d be nowhere audience-wise. I now make selective use of Facebook ads to reach a wider audience. They’re very good value.

What impact do you want your books to have on your readers?

If the reader identifies with the characters, in the case my novels that is, and finds that the twists in the plot surprise them, or that they read late into the night because they’re hooked, then I feel I’ve succeeded. Most of my reviewers on Amazon, and readers who get in touch through my website, tell me that this is the case. So I guess, with all modesty, I must be doing something right.

I also want the reader to perhaps understand the ‘villain’ of the peace, maybe see that lots of felons are just weak people, who at a split second in their lives could have gone either way. In the case of my ‘memoir’ books, I’m under no illusions that the majority of my readers will be Grecophiles, but anyone who likes travel books I would hope will find them fun, and at the same time informative.

What’s your book’s elevator pitch or key selling points?

If you’re referring to my latest, which is a novel entitled “The Crete Connection,” then it’s this:

“In rural Wiltshire, England, a six month-old baby disappears from a stroller while its mother is inside a store for just two minutes. A young Englishman begins a summer of adventure on the Greek island of Crete. By pure chance, the two events, although separated by over twenty years, are irrevocably linked by the taverna where the young Englishman ends up helping out. The result is life-changing, both for the mother of the child that disappeared, and for the young Englishman. A chance visit to the same taverna by these two separate individuals brings on a crisis in both of their lives, but will it end well for either?” –

Gripping, eh?

Makrylia, The village that we now call home, on a hillside 6km north of the town of Ierapetra, Crete. the southernmost town in all of Europe.

What’s next on your writing journey?

Well, having literally just published the latest novel, I’m going to re-charge the batteries a little for a few months. Each time I’ve finished a novel, I’ve felt that it would probably be my last, because without a strong storyline, it’s no good even attempting to write fiction. So I’m still amazed at myself that I’ve now come up with seven novels.

In the case of my factual writings, I am toying with the idea of resurrecting a project I’d begun before the idea for “The Crete Connection” hit me. I’d begun writing “A Beginner’s Guide to Greece,” or possibly “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Greece But Were Too Afraid to Ask,” with tongue firmly in cheek. There is a little info about this on the “Latest” page on my web site.

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About the Author

John Manuel was born in the 1950’s, into post-war Britain. He grew up in a country village in Somerset, in an environment that many would call idyllic. He had a close family and his childhood consisted of fields, hedgerows, seaside holidays and long bicycle rides.

He pursued a career as a graphic designer, although both art and English were equal at the top of his list of best subjects at school. He retired early and moved to Greece in his early fifties, to begin a second career as a writer.

John and his wife now live in a tiny village on a hillside in South-east Crete, where they enjoy getting out and immersing themselves in nature, oh, and the occasional coffee bar!